Bicamera
by Vivienne Grainger
Summary: The twins. Trouble. Adventure. General weirdness not often associated with the Transformers. Also starring a whole bunch of other humans and transformers.
1. Chapter 1

Do I need to apologize for harvesting characters pretty much as I please across all the universes?

I lived for a time in Portland, Oregon. The landmarks are all real.

The taco consumption referenced in the second part of this story happened in The Starhorse's "The Phoenix." Go read that, in fact read any of her stories or better yet all of them, when you're done here. I received her permission to cite.

This got a bit long for a one-shot. Next week will bring the ending.

Not mine, possession of whatever corporation currently owns the "Transformer" name and/or all previous owners, not for profit.

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"They're beautiful," Morgan Fairechild Prime said. "That one's a palomino?"

Her husband smiled. The polo ponies were indeed beautiful; his discerning eye could find no fault. "No," Optimus said. "The papers say his coat color is champagne."

"They're both sound, O.P." Nick Ratchette, setting down the sorrel's foot, stood up in the red horse's stall, slapped the tall shoulder, and let himself out. "Or at least I'll think so until I see them move."

The grooms trotted the stallions out, and then back. Optimus heard Nick say, "Beautiful," under his breath, and smiled again. He and Ratchette had known one another since college: they'd been roommates at Harvard, and then Optimus had picked up the MBA while Nick had transferred to UC Davis for his veterinary degree. Through twenty years, they'd stayed friends, even as Optimus ascended the levels of power associated with making obscene amounts of money, while Nick climbed the ladder of his own chosen profession.

Nick wouldn't lie to him.

"They're brothers?" said Morgan, looking at the horses' pedigrees.

"Actually, they're twins," said the dealer.

"Twins!" said Morgan.

Her husband frowned. With equine twins, inevitably one was weaker. He flipped through vet records: but neither stallion seemed to show any particular sign of frailty. According to Nick's written comments, the sorrel was perhaps the more impulsive temperamentally, which sometimes led to injuries ... but they were not stress injuries, and they were not the injuries one would expect from clumsiness or ineptitude on the horse's part. He had, in the past, attempted to jump a seven-foot wood fence when he was five months of age, a haystack five bales high (from a standing start, twenty feet away) and a twenty-five-foot wide flood spate through the pasture he had been kept in.

Just a rash redhead, that one.

Morgan continued, "But they're still entire, and they're, what, five now?"

The dealer said, "Five, yeah. They've never been separated, though. According to their records, two separate people bought them as yearlings, but both of them were so disconsolate that they were returned to the breeder. He took them back, schooled and made them himself, but as you know his son was killed last year, and he's selling the boy's string."

"Made" them? The dealer was not referring to godlike powers of creation on the part of the former owner, nor to mysterious Mafioso rituals, but the preliminary training of the horses for polo.

"Any foals?" Optimus asked. He flipped over to the training records, to look at the speed of uptake. If there was anything he disliked more than a stupid human, it was a stupid horse.

"Two year olds, yearlings, and at-foots. All their get have been born live so far." The dealer meant by "at-foot" that the foals were still suckling; the older offspring being not more than two years old meant little could be known, yet, of the animals' ability to breed quality.

The man went on, "They've each covered twenty mares a season while they were working or being conditioned. His son played them lightly last season. Terms of sale are that you take both of them."

"Huh. Training didn't take long, either." The sorrel had caught the point of the game in three training sessions, after his brother, who "got it" in two, played against him.

After that, they had required minimum stick-and-ball time, a sort of polo dress rehearsal, to become game-ready.

Optimus was extremely rich; still, trained polo ponies did not come cheap. That the horses were entire, and could sire more polo ponies, would add to their value.

The price asked for both was in excess of $200,000. Still, if they could play, and if that champagne could carry his weight ... "Well, can we tack them up and go for a test drive?"

The dealer nodded and signaled to the grooms, and Optimus' wife smiled. She nodded to their driver, who got out of the town car, and removed boots and polo mallets, along with a bag of balls, from the trunk. "What are their names, again?" she said.

"Registered names? The sorrel is Allspark's Mecha Sideswipe, and the champagne is AM Sunstreaker. They were both raced as two-year-olds, and they're fast enough, but they didn't take rating very well. All-out from start to finish, and that's it."

Said Morgan, "I wasn't thinking of changing their names." Her husband nodded; since the animals had been raced that was impossible anyway. "What are their call names?"

"'Sides' for the sorrel, and 'Sunny' for the blond."

The couple sat down on convenient hay bales and pulled the boots on over the jodhpurs they had worn to the dealer's yard. Both pulled on the padded vest with a tab at the back of the neck which protected the spine, leather gloves, and helmets.

While he did this, Optimus watched the horses being tacked up. He noted that Sides was quite affable about the whole procedure; Sunny was not, pinning his ears at his groom, who promptly cross-tied him, and cocking a hind hoof when the saddle was placed on his back.

They both took the bit easily enough.

Morgan smiled at Optimus, and said, "You're riding Sunny, aren't you."

"Yes," he said, and leaned down to kiss her. "I like solving management problems."

She laughed, and said, "His head's a bit finer too, and I know you like the pretty ones."

He smiled at her, and tossed her up into Sides' saddle. He did like the pretty ones, but that was the least of the reasons that he had married Morgan.

He left the champagne standing to watch her work the animal before picking up her mallet. The sorrel was tacked up in a pelham, the champagne in a full double - Optimus wondered if that meant the lighter stallion had a mouth like a rhinoceros'.

Not that he'd ever ridden a rhinoceros, actually ...

Morgan walked the red horse in a large circle, not asking for much, just feeling out his mouth on the reins. He was a dark, intense sorrel color: the kind of redhead that a dye job couldn't create, Optimus thought, rubbing a hand over his own hair, perhaps two shades darker than Sunny's coat. The sorrel lipped his bit, tossed his head - less in protest than in play - and as Morgan touched the rein which connected to the leverage-arm of the bit, moved off his forehand and naturally into a bit of collection.

Her knees and heels asked the horse to trot, and he promptly moved out into a collected form of the gait, Morgan sitting like a stone in the saddle.

The double reins a pair of telegraph wires between her mind and her mount, Morgan extended his trot; a creature of beauty standing still, Sideswipe became poetry in motion. She moved him into a collected canter, looking like she was riding an animated rocking horse, and sent him into a large figure-of-eight.

The stallion waited politely for her to instruct him as to this matter of leads? Cued, he promptly changed his leg.

She took him down the straight. He wasn't quite able to make a change of leg every stride the first pass, but when circled and asked for it again, did so with ease, and pleased with himself, snorted. _I just wasn't warmed up enough the first time._

He could, and did, side-pass, pivot on the forehand, pirouette, and demonstrate reverse gear.

Optimus' wife rode up to him, laughing. "Quite lovely," she said. "Do you want to try him?"

"I don't think there's much point to it," he grumbled. "You have your heart set on this one."

She grinned. "I'll take the champagne if he can't carry your weight." She bent down to kiss him, and the horse interposed his head between them. Optimus laughed, rubbing the red nose, and went to the other horse.

When mounting, Optimus shortened the outside rein, so that if the champagne attempted to move away from being mounted, or to bite, he would be compelled to move his body under Optimus' leg. But the lighter horse stood like a stone until cued to walk. He had been trained in the matter of opening gates from his back, and stood, sidepassed, pivoted on his forehand without difficulty.

His trot was silk. His canter, effortless. As he was bitted with a full double bridle, Optimus had no trouble balancing him perfectly; the yellow stallion also demonstrated an unnerving ability to turn on a dime and hand you three cents in change.

Although the animal wasn't tacked up for it, Optimus wanted to see if he could jump.

First, though: polo. The grooms showed them to a small ground kept for training, and Nick tossed a ball out.

Both man and wife felt their mounts stiffen, and in that wordless communication between horse and rider, shared the stallions' rising joy.

Morgan grinned at Optimus from clear across the arena, and put her dainty heels into her mount's side.

The two stallions were about evenly matched in terms of athleticism. Optimus outweighed his wife by a considerable amount, so he could expect, he thought, that the champagne would be the slower of the two; but here, he was pleasantly surprised. The horse laid back his ears, and put some kick into it. The two riders arrived at the ball at the same time; Morgan, a little faster than Optimus because she was right-handed, and the game must be played that way, got the mallet down first, and the sharp "Crack!" of the impact drove the ball back the way he had come.

The champagne put down a hind hoof, spun on it like a top, and nearly left his rider in the grass.

In the game of polo, the horse makes or breaks a rider as an asset to his team. Optimus prided himself on being the best, the strongest tactician, the most accomplished player. He needed a horse that could keep him in the game, as aggressive at following the ball as he was himself.

He also, at six feet five and two-sixty, needed a horse that could carry his weight and still lend him some speed: he had been told many times that he was too big to play polo. Most ponies were not large enough to carry him at the speeds the game demanded.

The twin stallions, each standing sixteen hands and two inches at the top of the shoulder, were much taller than most polo ponies, but each one was lightning-quick. The yellow stud behaved as if Optimus were feathers, keeping him on top of the ball, having no hesitation about riding off his twin. He caught Morgan's startled grin when that happened.

The groom blew the whistle to signal the end of their impromptu chukkar, and Optimus attempted to rein his mount in. The champagne shook his head, changed his leg, and wanted to go faster. Optimus insisted, however, and when the two horses pulled up snorting and blowing, said to the groom, "Put up a hurdle for me, will you? Three and a half?"

As he suspected, the yellow horse took in stride the cues which set him at the hurdle and slightly lengthened his stride on approach; Optimus felt a surge of power as they left the ground, and the landing was rock-solid. He went around again, taking the jump on a left turn, then a right one.

He pulled up, and tossed the reins to a groom. "Thanks, buddy," he said, and slapped the sweating neck.

The yellow horse tossed his head, and the groom took him away.

Morgan knew the post-tryout drill. She walked demurely with her husband, saying nothing as he dickered with the dealer. She absented herself so the real bargaining could begin, and collected boots and vests and helmets and gloves and mallets and the ball, giving them to their driver to stow in the boot of the car.

Then she seated herself daintily in the back, leaving the door open, and waited for her husband to appear.

His large frame threw a shadow into the car. "They'll be home on Thursday," he said, grinning.

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They'd been warned, and so Sides and Sunny were stabled next to one another. Their paddocks were also adjacent, but it became immediately apparent that this did not suit the horses. Sides was inclined to stay at the paddock fence, whinnying for Sunny and knocking the whitewash off the wood with his forefeet, while Sunny performed the same duties at night with the wall between their boxes.

Jack Wheeler, their farrier, made a suggestion. "Removable rubber shoes," he said. "I'll put them on over the regular shoes, so that they can play with each other without killin' themselves." He turned from Morgan to light his gas forge.

Morgan gazed at him in awe. "That's brilliant."

He smiled. "Sure. Can we see the red man trot out first?"

After shoeing the horses, he took casts of their feet, and returned two days later with the overshoes.

The fence was removed. Morgan stayed long enough to watch them run and play together for a half-hour, and made a note to drag Optimus out here to see for himself.

Problems ensued that evening, however, as the yellow horse followed the red one into his box, and refused absolutely, with flattened ears, bared teeth, and slashing feet, to be put into his own.

Optimus, who was home when this happened, shrugged. "Put them into the foaling box."

His wife giggled at him. "I love you," she said.

"I know." As the grooms turned away to give them their privacy, he touched her hair, and said, "And I'm grateful."

Morgan grinned. "Come on, Number Three," she said, giving him his polo designation; he had a ten-handicap at the game, as high as they get, and was the team's leader, as well as its patron, and thereby the man who subsidized the two amateurs they played with. She was the lowly, as she put it, Number Four: defense. She put a hand through his arm, and pulled him out of the barn.

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"He's got a beautiful mouth," Optimus said. "I don't want to ruin it."

The team coach, whose Eastern European name had long ago transmogrified into "Prowler" from his habit of stalking the edges of the playing field, said, his consonants betraying his origins, "You can ride him in a hackamore for all I care, so long as you stay on the line of the ball."

Polo ponies are typically ridden in a bridle with two bits, or at least two sets of reins, one more severe than the other. Ponies with soft mouths are sometimes ridden with a single bit. However, it's a given in polo that the rider's balance cannot always be maintained with knee and thigh and seat alone; occasionally, the reins get leaned on.

"It's not a problem with the boy," Optimus said, grinning down at the smaller man. "He loves that ball. He's also aggressive enough to ride off an opponent on his own."

"Have you explained the rules to him?" Prowler said dryly.

In polo, it is legal to "ride off" an opponent by pushing one horse with another. At a gallop, if this is not executed with great care, injuries result. Therefore it is termed "dangerous riding" if the angle of impact is greater than forty-five degrees, and the team which rode off the other is penalized.

"I haven't had to," Optimus said. "This is a very smart horse. He waits and changes his stride so that he impacts them right when all four feet are off the ground, so he can come in at quite a steep angle, and he doesn't have to hit them hard."

"Sheesh," said Prowler. "So you can drop your hands, and he'll still play polo."

"I could train him to carry the mallet in his mouth, and send him into the game without me, and he'd still play polo."

"Now there's a thought," Prowler said, head on one side. "He wouldn't have a ten-handicap to overcome."

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Polo season ended, but by that time, Optimus had a pretty good idea of his yellow horse's capabilities. "I want you to train him for three-day eventing in the off-season," he said to Morgan on a weekend morning.

His wife's eyes widened. "You'd trust me with Sunny?"

"I'd trust _him_ with _you_. Evil-tempered yellow bastard that he is, he's a smart horse, and he needs a challenge. And he's impatient, but he isn't - " he paused, looking for the word.

"Vengeful?"

"Or maybe malignant. He's got no grace, but he isn't mean. If we don't work him, he gets bored and angry. Angrier."

"Well," she said, laying aside the grapefruit she'd consumed, "I'll do that ... you know he won't compete until next year."

"Yes, and you'll have to start at the lowest level, but I have confidence in you. And in him."

"Good," his wife said, and returned his smile across their sunny, spacious south-Florida breakfast nook. "Because I want a favor for Sides."

"And that is?"

"He's better-tempered than Sunny, but he gets bored too. He also tends, as we know, to get into mischief pretty easily."

"Tell me about it. Tell Nick too."

Morgan smiled. "Nick likes Sides."

"How can you tell from the swearing?"

"That's partly it. I've never seen him get so - so incensed over something an animal does, as he is over Sides' latest escapades."

"True. So what had you in mind?"

"I've contacted Sam Witwicky to train him for cutting," Optimus' wife said. "I think it'll keep him out of trouble."

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Sam Witwicky arrived with a trailerful of nondescript cattle.

"Did you bring them with you all the way from Texas?" Optimus asked, bemused. Morgan could not be there, to her intense regret.

The strong tang of the Longhorn state in his speech, Witwicky said, "Nah, bought 'em yesterday in Naples."

The cows, freed, found a half-acre field just to their liking. Sam and Optimus went to look at Sides.

"Wow, ain't he pretty?" Witwicky said. "What makes you think he'd be a good cutter? He's built more like a stadium jumper."

"He's easily bored, and very smart. He's one of my wife's polo ponies. The yellow one, his twin brother, is one of my mounts, and my wife is schooling him into eventing."

Sam laughed. "That's the thing with polo ponies. You gotta keep 'em entertained." He turned back to his truck. "Kinda bridle he usually wear?"

"Pelham."

"Hm. 'Spose we put him in that, then, and I'll use my cuttin' saddle."

The stallion snorted when the saddle was put down on his back, turned his head to his own side, and gave it a thorough snuffling.

Sam, not much dismayed, said, "Yeah, other horses've been wearing this, ain't they, buddy?" He set the girth, and put the breastcollar into place, patting Sides easily.

Sam was smaller than Morgan, but didn't bother to use the stirrups to mount, leaping into the saddle from the ground. Sideswipe, not used to this, snorted and tossed his head. "No, easy, there," Sam said, picking up the snaffle reins, and leaving the curb reins lying on his neck.

The saddle was heavier and the rider's weight carried differently than with the tack the horse was used to. Sam took him to the field the cattle were in, and commenced teaching him balance under the new gear.

Optimus watched from Sunny's back as the sorrel was introduced to the cows. (Cows, your tormentor for today; Sides, your new playthings.)

Cutting cows requires that one cow be separated out of the herd, and prevented from returning to it. Cows are a prey species, and in the wild, where they evolved, their safety lies in the herd; they want with their whole being to get back to that safety.

Further, these cows' experience was that a man on horseback among them was bad news. In their collective past, his presence had led to being roped and branded, herded into strange metal things to be squeezed while two-legged creatures gave them shots, or on one memorable occasion, castrated. This was not their idea of a good time. They fled before Sides as if he had some kind of plague.

Sides, for his part, was enchanted. His ears had pricked forward until their tips almost touched, and his eyes brightened.

Sam called across to Optimus, "One thing about the polo pony trainin', they already give you a good collected turn. I was hopin' he'd be interested in the cows on his own, 'cause if they ain't it's real hard to make a good cutter out of 'em, but it don't look like that's going to be a problem."

Optimus laughed. "I'd say not!"

Sam guided Sides until the pair had separated out one particular cow. He gave the horse minimal cues to keep the animal away from its herd until Optimus saw the horse suddenly _get it_. It's like polo, only with a cow! This is great!

Fifteen minutes later, Sam dropped his hand, and Sideswipe worked a cow all on his own. When Sam picked up the reins again, Sides swiveled his ears back and forth, back and forth, indicative of where his attention was. _Can we do that again?_

Sam let him work six cows, about ten minutes of very hard work.

Optimus knew that Sunny had a hock cocked up under himself, resting one leg. Not bored, as his ears were forward and he was watching his brother with interest, but not engaged. "No cow tag for you, then?" he said to his mount, and was rewarded with a snort and a full-body shake.

Sam brought the lathered and sweating Sideswipe to the rails. "You got yourself a winner here," he said, slapping the sweaty neck. "Normally, I'd say it's a year before the horse is ready to show, but this boy, I'd like to ride in a show here in Florida in two weeks. It'll cost you a little extra to enter him at short notice, but he's ready to go. I'll be by to ride him twice a week, and I'd appreciate it if nobody else cut on him. Ridin' a cutter looks easy, but it ain't."

"I'm hoping," Optimus said calmly, "that you can teach me the skill. My wife rides this one in three-day events, since I'm too big to ask a horse to jump with, but I'd like to do this with the red guy. I don't ride him much otherwise."

For answer, Sam dismounted, and handed the reins to Optimus. "Try it," he said.

Optimus learned that the cutting horse works hard, but the rider works somewhat harder just to stay on top of an animal who is having himself the hell of a lot of fun. He touched the reins, and Sideswipe stopped, gathered into a position of readiness to do whatever might next be asked of him.

"That was all right, wasn't it?" said Optimus, and reached down to rub the crest. Sideswipe arched his neck and bowed his head. _You betcha._

Sam rode out on Sunny, and Optimus was interested to see that the cutter wizard, as he was called, had as good a seat on the flat saddle as he did in the cutting rig. "So, waddaya think?" he said to Optimus.

"I've got some things to learn," Optimus said wryly.

"Yep, but you ain't bad for a beginner. I think you can probably show this boy in two weeks, but I want you to do some prep work. I'm going to send you one of my old horses, and you can cut a little every day on him. Never for more than five minutes at a time, all right? Cut one cow for a minute, then another for forty-five seconds, and a third for another forty-five seconds. In competition, you've got two minutes and thirty seconds to work three cows. So get used to doing that. Let my old man teach you balance and stability in the cutting rig. The last three days before the show, you and ol' Red and I will work together. And if you decide you're serious about this, go down to your saddler's and have them build you a saddle and breastplate combination to fit you both." He paused. "You got any cowboy clothes? Appearance don't matter much in the ring, but you might want to get jeans, and a shirt, and a hat."

The first time she saw him in them, Morgan burst out laughing. "You look like John Wayne," she said.

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Three-day eventing is designed to be a test not just of a horse's training but of his temperament and his athleticism. The first day is generally given to the dressage test; the second to the most tiring of the three parts of the competition, the cross-country. The last day encompasses the physically demanding show-ring jumping.

Sunny and Sides (who later that day would place second in the Novice Cutting Horse event) had been taken out for a twenty-minute trot in the morning, the day before the three-day started. To keep him entertained, Morgan had entered Sunny in the walk-trot, basic-level dressage class. She rode the stallion through the horse show grounds in the afternoon, and then took the half-hour warmup allowed all competitors. Just to get Sunny focused on what they were doing here.

His concentration sharpened wonderfully. If Allspark's Mecha Sunstreaker had a fault, though, it was that he was never "submissive" to his rider, a requirement for dressage horses. He went along with what you wanted for the moment because it suited his purposes. Morgan hoped that he would figure out that he had to at least fake submitting to his bit to get the attention and petting he believed was his due.

He faked it well enough to place third, with an average score of 65, which meant that next time, Morgan thought, accepting the ribbon and doing her victory lap with it, they could compete at a higher level. She brought Sunny back to stand quietly behind the judges, where he could watch the presentation of the second- and first-place ribbons, and the trophy. She thought that nothing else would teach the vain horse that a ribbon was fine, but he could get quite a lot more fuss made over himself if he got the trophy. She hadn't quite figured out how to connect that to learning to fake the requisite submissiveness for him.

Sunstreaker watched, ears flickering. He learned. He placed in the top five in the dressage phase of the three-day event.

Cross-country was another place where Sunny needed to learn a thing or six. He was adamant that he, and he alone, set pace, stride length, and take-off point. Morgan sat still, somehow retained her seat through a number of bumpy landings and a soaking when he miscalculated the width of a water-jump. He accepted a suggestion at the last three obstacles.

So he was learning. He was just faintly tired when she mounted the next day for the arena jumping. Perhaps it was his level of fatigue, but he accepted guidance until they came to the last three jumps.

At the last component of a triple jump, three oxers spaced so that if you hit the first one right, you had to shorten stride to hit the second correctly, and lengthen it again for the third, Sunny decided that he was driving. He set his mouth, took his bits, and somehow made it over the last oxer. He cleared the water jump with feet to spare, and a jaunty twirl of his tail.

The last jump they faced was the largest and widest in the arena that day. Morgan did her very best to show Sunny the thin rail that crossed the top of the wider X below it, but Sunny knew best, or so Sunny thought.

She had enough control to keep him from hitting that top rail with his front legs, but he brought it down, flinging it forward into his own belly, with his hind legs.

Sunny flung up his head and snorted, and with the four faults that earned them, they didn't make the cut.

Morgan walked him out until he was cool, and then brought him back to watch the awards ceremony.

She could feel that Sunstreaker simply lost interest right at that point.

"Well, how about steeplechasing, then?" Optimus said that night, when they had returned to the house. "Or maybe just the arena jumping?"

"Why don't you take him hunting?"

"That's an idea," Optimus said slowly. "That'll keep him busy before polo season; there's about three months in there, though, when he won't be doing anything."

"Oh yes he will," said his wife darkly. "I am going to teach that horse proper dressage if it kills us both."

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It didn't kill either of them. Sunstreaker hunted with Optimus in the saddle until he was fourteen, when he fell quite heavily at a simple jump, slipping in the November mud on takeoff.

Nick Ratchette shook his head. "I think you should retire him from jumping. He's beginning to show signs of aging, Optimus, thinning cartilage plates, slower reaction times. He's very likely sound for polo only for a few more years."

The end of middle age for a horse also cost Sideswipe his enthusiasm for cutting cattle.

"A fine time for you to grow up, old man," said Sam Witwicky, rubbing the sorrel nose. "I'll miss ya."

Sideswipe blew down his nostrils and bobbed his head in agreement. Sam looked at Optimus in the saddle. "Interest you in another one?" he said.

"I don't know, Sam," Optimus said honestly. "Let me think about it."

At the age of seventeen, both brothers lost their enthusiasm for polo within weeks of one another.

"Wow," said Nick Ratchette. "Optimus, I haven't seen a horse go downhill this fast in quite a long time, and it's both of them. All their bloodwork's good, and honestly, they don't _look_ sick. They don't look like horses that are in pain; you know that look as well as I do. It's more like they've done what they wanted to do, and now they're finished."

"Yeah." Optimus fondled Sunstreak's muzzle. But the old stallion simply turned away, not bothering to flash his teeth or flatten his ears.

Sideswipe had not even come to the open half-door of the stable.

"What do you want to do?" Nick said quietly.

"If you're sure they're not in pain," Optimus said, "I think we'll let them have their retirement in peace." Morgan, ashen, nodded.

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Inevitably, there came a morning when the red horse did not get up. The yellow stallion stayed at his side, fending off grooms and even Optimus, Morgan, and Nick, until he was tranquilized and led away.

They couldn't persuade him to eat or drink after that.

"I can give him fluids under the skin," Nick said, four days after. "It'll keep him going, and he might pick up later."

Morgan looked at her husband. "I don't think so," she said quietly. "He's lost the only person he ever really loved. It's too hard for him to go on alone."

Optimus put an arm around her shoulders, and nodded to Nick. With a heavy heart, the vet tranquilized Sunstreaker until he was almost asleep on his feet, and then gave him the overdose of anaesthesia that stopped his heart.

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Yellow-lidded optics blinked open.

"You feel okay, Sunny?" Ratchet said.

"You slagging son of the Pit," the yellow Lamborghini snarled, leaping up off the med table and reaching for Ratchet with both hands, "you killed me!"


	2. Chapter 2

This got longer than I expected. Sometimes the Muse has more on her mind than she lets me know about.

Again, the taco incident comes from the wonderful stories of The Starhorse, this one called "The Phoenix."

I spent eight very long years as a child in the very town in Oregon where Will might yet supervise paper-shredding.

Not mine, possession of whatever corporation currently owns the "Transformer" name and/or all previous owners, not for profit.

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Ratchet, stepping back out of the enraged Sunstreaker's reach, said to Wheeljack, "Well, _that_ worked."

Wheeljack had pushed a plunger he held in one hand when Sunstreaker surged up, and the Lamborghini collapsed unconscious onto the floor of the med bay; his hands had been six inches from Ratchet's throat.

"We'll have to send him back down," Wheeljack said.

Ratchet shrugged, and made sure that Sideswipe didn't waken any further than blinking heavy-lidded optics. "So long as you're sure they won't come out of it psychotic."

"They won't if they weren't going in. And with Sunny, how could you tell?"

"Good point."

The medic and the inventor bent back to their work.

0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

Wheeljack said, "It's a skin. It lets your hologram interact with the real world."

Sideswipe's hologram grabbed Rachet's right below the ribs and tickled twice. Ratchet shrieked, leapt two feet in the air, did a one-eighty on landing, and proved Wheeljack's assertion even further by raising a fist with a wrench in it to Sideswipe.

"Stop that!" Prowler said quite loudly.

Sideswipe grinned. Ratchet scowled more deeply, if that were possible, and lowered his fist.

Mirage, also skin-clad, said, "It's got many of the same limitations humans do. It's rather fragile, actually, although it's stronger than any three or four humans. Still, it's not steel. So don't be too rambunctious in it."

Sunstreaker, admiring himself in the medbay's reflective panels, said, "So you want us to do what in these?"

"Will Lennox said that there are humans in Portland who are stealing goods for the Decepticons, then cashing the items in for money to buy energon. We're going to infiltrate those groups."

"Dangerous?" said Sideswipe.

"It might be for Will, but it's hard to see how it could be for any of you," Wheeljack said. "You'll be miles away from where your hologram is. Even if the 'cons fired a missile into the skin, it would blow up, but you wouldn't. You might feel a twinge when your projection is blown, but that's all."

"That's happened to you?" said Sunstreaker.

"It's happened to me," said Mirage. "It burns all over for a nanoklik, and then it's gone."

"Like a mouthful of wasabi," said Sideswipe helpfully.

Ratchet's holographic face went a deep red. "Have you been eating human food again?"

"Just a little bit. Not like the tacos, that time."

"That's good. Because if you had been, I would be forced to kill you. Do you have _any_ idea how hard it is to get refried beans out of your fuel pump?"

Sideswipe opened his mouth to ask how Ratchet knew that "wasabi" was a human food, not a Japanese car or something, and Prowler said loudly, "Sideswipe, shut up." He turned back to the inventor. "So you have more information for us?"

"Yes. You'll need to wear clothes, for one thing, and you'll need to change them daily. Will Lennox says he will teach you how to keep yourselves clean and groomed."

Five suitcases lay stacked on the tables.

Wheeljack, who wore his projection only as a bow to the scale problem otherwise presented, manifested it as a lab-coated geeky sort. He, after all, was not going to have to live in it long enough to change clothes.

As for the others? The five projections were stark naked. All of the warriors were tiger-fit, and easy on the eyes; their own eyes were universally an arc-welding blue. Oh my, yes.

Except for the long-suffering Ratchet, who was unfortunately more of an Oh my God, no. Redheads do not age well, and Ratchet had long ago given up on any form of exercise that took place outside the med bay. That he wasn't perfectly circular was a testament to how hard he worked within the walls of his inner sanctum. On the other hand, he did freckle, sag, and bulge.

Still, the eyes were awfully pretty.

Prowl? Mid-thirties, muscular, dark hair and blue eyes, and a fair skin that showed black beard under the aesthetic planes of his face.

Mirage was shorter and slighter, rangy, with light-brown hair, a fine-boned face, and the least intense of all the sets of blue eyes. A good-looking man who became completely un-memorable the moment the onlooker's eyes left him.

The patrician cast to Mirage's features was rivaled only by Sunstreaker's, who hadn't stopped admiring himself in the nearest available stainless-steel surface since his projector came on-line. Tall, lithe, blond, tanned, Sunstreaker was perfect, a thing of beauty to look upon as befit a Lamborghini. It was his personality that wasn't a joy forever.

Sideswipe was a not-quite carbon copy of his twin in red, his handsome face just a tiny bit coarser than Sunstreaker's. His crimson mane was shot with fire and gold when he moved, and the hair reached his waist. He was also quite heavily scarred, a consequence of his philosophy of life: "Leap first, say 'oh shit' on the way down."

Still, as Sarah Lennox told Will later, she wouldn't throw any of them out of bed for eating crackers. Even Ratchet.

"What would I have to eat in bed for you to throw me out?" he asked curiously.

Sarah knit her brows. "Large quantities of baby back ribs, extra sauce, corn muffins, and coleslaw. No fork, no napkin. Then I'd throw you out."

Will snorted a laugh. "I think I can resist that," he said.

The five Transformer projections were "sleeping," in various states of nudity, on the floor in the Lennox's living room. Their true selves were of course in recharge in the Oregon desert.

Sarah had turned bright pink when she suggested they get ready for their down-cycle. Every single one of them had simply stepped out of his clothes, right there in front of both her and Will.

"Uh, guys," she'd said, "usually people don't undress in front of people who are the other gender unless they know them really well. Better than any of you know me."

Will, who had turned bright red, calmed down when the five of them turned puzzled faces (attached to naked bodies) to her. Then Annabelle cried, so Sarah went gratefully off to tend to her daughter, and let Will give the Transformers their sex ed.

This was not so easy as it sounds. The distinction of gender was largely unknown to them, so he had to start from the basic basics, introducing new concepts as he went.

He'd never seen such blank faces.

And then he'd had to teach them to bathe, and brush their teeth.

"Will," Sarah said now, putting her hand on his stomach, "there are five naked men, all of whom I like as people, even though they aren't, and all of whom I have seen all of, sleeping in my living room. I never realized that being married to you would be such an adventure."

He said, nuzzling into her hair, "I'm grateful that you see it that way. Your only shortcoming is your stance on those baby backs."

0-0-0-0-0-0

It took Will six weeks of having naked men sleep on his living-room floor, holding impromptu classes and taking them to the mall to interact with unsuspecting guinea pigs, who thought they were just out shopping, to get the guys ready to be human.

Sideswipe developed a fondness for McDonald's, and found he could interact well with teenage girls, although Sarah knew that he had no idea why this last should be so. She thought he also liked the little kick that caffeine gave his skin.

The constructs had to be fed, as they could not be powered from the energon in distant bodies. Once Sideswipe realized that McDonald's could feed him three times a day, and that that crap tasted better than what Sarah could provide, he was rarely home for meals; she'd had to have a talk with all of them about nutrition, and insist that breakfast be eaten at her house.

Mirage liked bookstores. He collected women who wore glasses, but to their frustration, he never made passes.

Prowl sat on the benches, looking as if his wife, perhaps, were off trying on expensive dresses, and he was avoiding watching the numbers rise on the cash register. He could, and on one occasion did, recite entire overhead conversations verbatim, and sometimes asked questions about them.

Surprisingly, Ratchet proved to be best left to his own devices, walking around with his hands in his pockets. Given a time and place to meet the rest of the group, he was never late. And when Will eavesdropped on a conversation he had with an unsuspecting person, he learned that the medic had taught himself, by whatever means.

Sunstreaker went to the stores that Will characterized as Stuff-You-Have-to-Dust shops, hobby shops, and museum stores. Although all of them had some personal funds, he was the only one who bought anything you couldn't eat: a set of charcoals, and a drawing tablet. After that he sat with Prowl, and drew passing countenances, interesting figure-groups, or his own or Prowl's face, reflected in the storefronts.

Four weeks after their arrival, Sarah suggested haircuts. Sideswipe, the one most in need, she thought, refused point-blank. But he did go with the others, and flipped through a skateboard magazine while the rest had their haircuts.

Ratchet: buzz cut. Prowl: not much longer than that. Mirage: a _perfectly groomed_ earlobe-length bob, somehow not at all effeminate. Sunstreaker: cut to the bottom of the shoulder blades and braided out of the way.

The receptionist at the salon said to Sideswipe, "Sir, are you sure we can't at least trim the raggedy ends for you? Your hair will be a lot healthier if we do."

Sideswipe flipped the magazine open to a photograph. "Can you get it to do that?"

The receptionist blenched. "Let me call Celeste. She'll tell you what to do."

Celeste trimmed the ends, and said to Sideswipe, "Okay, you want hair like that, this's what you do." She pulled out a lock of the long red hair, and began.

By the time they were ready to embark on their mission, Sideswipe had a respectable crop of dreadlocks.

0-0-0-0-0-0

The club was smoky. Wasn't smoking cigarettes indoors in a workplace illegal in Oregon, Will wondered? But then he realized that this wasn't cigarette smoke, and began to worry how the hell he would pass his next unannounced UA.

The place had no windows and low walls - the twins, well over six feet, were in danger of whacking their heads on pipes that crisscrossed the ceiling.

The dark space held two pool tables, a dozen stools at the counter, a dozen or so tables. Men, and a very few women, crowded the bar and the pool tables; the stand-alone tables, each seating four, were largely empty.

The place was short on charm, and long on energy. Will bought a round of beers, and a harried-looking waitress brought them to the table.

"Y'all want anythin' to eat?" she said.

"Cheeseburgers and fries, all around," Will said. He paid for the drinks and left the change as tip, and then belatedly remembered to slump, sitting on his spine.

They'd been there an hour, and were running out of things to talk about. Will had had to forbid Sideswipe to have a fifth cheeseburger; Ratchet had begun to glower after the third.

A chair was pulled up to their table, and a man Will, who was facing the door, hadn't seen come in sat down. "You're Carson?" he said to Will.

"Yeah? Who wants ta know?" Will pushed himself upright - not too upright; a soldier's bearing could give him away here.

"My boss. You said you could keep things safe for us, yeah?"

"Me and my crew between us," Will said, gesturing at the guys.

The intermediary's eyes narrowed as they fell on Ratchet. "What d'you do?"

"Hacking," Ratchet said simply.

The other narrowed his eyes. "Which one you like better, AppFirst or Cloudkick?"

"Actually, I prefer Beanstalk," Ratchet said calmly. "Although for realtime analytics, mixpanel is best."

The scruffy guy nodded in dismissal, refocused on Will. "You be here tomorrow at nine, and I'll come in with an assignment. You do this one okay, we might give you another. Pay's fifty a guy. Won't need the geek."

0-0-0-0-0-0

"This place doesn't improve on further acquaintance," Will grumbled at nine forty-five the next night.

"No." Prowl was nursing a Scotch, for the taste he said. "The clientele is fascinating, though."

"Which ones?"

"The three women at the bar who are wearing tight clothing. The short skirts and those very odd shoes."

Hookers. Oh great. "Not wise to look at them directly, Prowl."

"No," Prowl agreed. "There is something disquieting about them."

"They'll have sex with strangers for money or drugs," Will said. "It's called prostitution."

Prowl choked on his Scotch. "You mean - they'll spark-share for ... consumer goods?"

"Yes. That's how they earn a living."

"You should know, then, that two of them have been eyeing the twins all evening."

"I hope that freakin' guy shows up soon," Will said fervently.

One of the hookers detached herself from the bar, and went to watch the twins and Mirage playing pool. The Autobots, having on-board computers, as it were, had mulched the human competition, and now had one table to themselves.

Will watched Mirage and Sunstreaker shut the lady of the evening down in twenty seconds flat, combined.

Then Sideswipe sank the last ball on the table, and straightened to chalk his cue.

The hooker focused on him, and her concentration sharpened like a laser.

Will got up, and leisurely, casually, moved toward the table. If he were out with a bunch of wet-behind-the-ears recruits, he'd have done the same thing.

Sideswipe had smiled genially at her, which she would of course mistake for willingness to, to, _I don't even want to think it_, Will thought grimly, but then to his surprise, the Autobot nodded at him. The hooker turned.

"Guy says he'll meet you by Powell's, northwest," she said.

She didn't move on after she gave him that information. Will realized that she was waiting for something, and nodded to Mirage, who pulled out a twenty and gave it to her, just like they'd rehearsed.

"I don't understand why," Mirage had said quietly, when told that he would be the hand-off guy for money.

"If I'm seen handing money to underworld types, my reputation is pretty much shot," Will explained. "I'll be disgraced, since the Autobot program can't be compromised by publicizing what I'm actually doing. I'll end up supervising the paper-shredding machines at an airbase in Buttfuck, Oregon, or something." He slapped Mirage on the upper arm. "That's a gesture of affection between people, Mirage."

"Ah. I see. I would guess," Mirage said quietly, as they strolled among large trees in Portland's Forest Park, "that I, as a person who does not exist, can dole out cash with impunity."

"Yeah. If they take a picture of you, your face can't be matched to any government-issued ID." Will smiled. "Now, if you look like a spy from Uzbekistan, I'm going to be in trouble, but I don't think that's much of a risk."

0-0-0-0-0-0

They piled into the nondescript rustbucket van they'd been issued, and Will distributed their shoulder-holstered handguns. "Wear them under your jackets," he said. Used to being one with their weapons, quite literally, it had taken Will four days to get them all shooting straight.

Ratchet, surprisingly, was the best shot of the group. Better than Will by just a bit.

Mr. Second Best drove them into the northwest quarter of Portland. Powell's, a gigantic bookstore occupying an entire block, was closed, but their guy was waiting at the darkened front door.

"Come on," he said.

The five men followed him to an enormous warehouse a few blocks away. There, the crumb posted Prowl, Mirage, and Sunstreaker at the entrance, and took Sideswipe and Will with him into the cavernous bowels of the place.

The place was huge, dusty, dark. The only light available came from a single bulb, up too high to do much good. They couldn't see into the depths, or the corners, or the high ceilings.

Will didn't think they'd be so unlucky as to be introduced to a Decepticon right off the bat, and this turned out to be true. Another human came out of the darkness to meet the crumb, and said only, "You got the money?"

Their crumb said, "Yeah. The stuff here?"

"Yeah. Let's see the dough."

Their crumb pulled a fat package out of his shirt. Will could see that there were three zeroes on the bills.

Crumb #2 thumbed through the wad, making sure that all the bills were the same, and nodded into the darkness. Four men materialized from the shadows, one of them wearing a briefcase handcuffed to his arm.

"Be easy for me to shoot you right here, take the scag and the money, and screw you," Crumb #2 said to their crumb.

Their crumb said, "You think we're alone?"

"I know you only brought three other guys in wit' you."

"Still, six against five, an' even you ain't so dumb as to piss off Steven an' his posse."

The other nodded, and the tension around them dropped. The exchange was made.

The guy had them drive him to another location, and drop him at a corner. "You don't need to see where I'm going, so I watch until I see your taillights fade. Got it?" he said to Will.

"I got it. When do we get paid?"

"When I meet my guy at the drop-off."

He wasn't pleased when Will got out of the truck with him at the drop-off point, a pleasant neighborhood on the other side of the Willamette River: northeast, as opposed to Powell's northwest. "Whaddaya doin'?"

Will smiled at him. "I spent a lot of time bein' bored tonight. I want to get paid for it."

The little rat snarled, and pulled four fifties from his pocket, throwing them on the ground.

"That's generous of you," Will said, "but kinda rude. My fee for rude is another fifty, and you pick up all of them and put them in my hand."

Will watched him carefully in the rearview as they left, but true to his word, their crumb stayed put until his taillights faded, and a turn put them beyond their view of him.

0-0-0-0-0-0

The third time they worked with him, "I'm tired of havin' to be at that crummy bar night after night," Will groused, once the job was done. He pulled into a convenience store, the crumb looking at him wide-eyed.

All five of the guys scrambled out with him. Chips, soda for Sideswipe, beer for the rest of them: "Hey! Swipe!" Will yelled. "Get me a soda too!"

He approached the counter, pulled out two random throwaway cell phones, paid for them both. In the van, he exchanged numbers with his paranoid employer. "You need us, you call us," he said. "We ain't goin' back there."

He did not tell the crumb that this was mostly Sarah's idea: "All of you smell terrible when you come back from that place. Can't you meet this creep someplace else?"

The Autobots had totally failed to look stricken, except for Sideswipe, who greatly enjoyed the cheeseburgers. They were mostly bored with pool by now, and they agreed with her assessment.

"Although the women are entertaining," Prowl added.

Sarah gave him an I-don't-want-to-know look, and went into the kitchen.

"Women?" said Will, very carefully indeed. He'd thought that issue settled.

Prowl shrugged. "Sometimes," he said, "when you go into the bathroom, they ask me to go with them. They usually don't say where. They just say I'll have a good time. I've declined, as what they describe doesn't seem interesting, and I don't think it would be safe to go off by myself with them."

"I took one of them up on it," said Sideswipe. "It wasn't very interesting, you're right about that. She bounced up and down on top of me in the car for a while, and then she wanted me to give her some money."

Sarah disappeared from view.

_Oh dear God they are going to station me in Antarctica, where I will count penguins for the rest of my life_, Will thought. He said only, "Sideswipe, please don't do that again. Prowl is right. It might not be safe."

"Okay," said Sideswipe, losing interest in the conversation in favor of a skateboarding magazine.

Now, Sarah had the tall children, and her own child, out for a walk through their neighborhood.

Sideswipe was one of them, abandoning practice on the sidewalk in front of the house for a chance to broaden his competence on his recently-purchased skateboard: he was at the falling-off-frequently stage of learning to use it. Sarah had insisted that he purchase a helmet and knee- and elbow-pads.

Sideswipe would never say so, but his first head-knocking helmet-free spill had convinced him she was right. He'd had no personal forehead pain, but the body his consciousness was in did. It was a disturbing experience, and he did not wish to repeat it.

His knees, his nose, and his elbows were skinned raw by the time he got the padding, because he spent a minimum of twelve hours a day on his skateboard, and probably a full fifteen minutes of that impacting the ground. But Sideswipe didn't care; it didn't hurt that bad, and he was in love.

And, Will mused, he sort of looked like Shaun White would ten years from now, if Shaun White wore dreads.

Sideswipe's eccentricities receded from his mind when Will sat at the secure computer in their hidden room, and accessed the Ark.

Wheeljack said, "Will! How are things going?"

"Pretty well. I have an issue regarding interaction, though, and I can't get Ratchet alone to ask him about it."

"It's about Sideswipe, isn't it."

"Yeah ... how did you know that?"

"I am acquainted with Sideswipe. What has he done?"

"Outside of wipe out on a skateboard and scramble his circuits? He may have had sex with a prostitute. Probably it was unprotected sex. That's my fault; I didn't think it would be necessary to talk to him about it. You said the skins don't produce sex hormones."

Wheeljack, on camera, shrugged. "They don't. That skin'll be destroyed when the projection is withdrawn, and of course no organic virus can attack us, attack our programming. Relax, Will. Outside of the security risks, it's not even an issue."

Will felt his shoulders drop from underneath his ears. Security risks, that he could understand: he'd talked to all of them about it, gotten Sideswipe alone for a chat, felt confident that Red had divulged nothing of urgency. What he'd been worried about was Sideswipe's health.

0-0-0-0-0-0

Will shrugged. "It takes time," he said, "to get them to trust us. This is our first big break."

The 'bots had been Arkside for six days at the end of six weeks of gaining that trust. They couldn't break the law outright in their dealings with the creep, but they were being asked to skirt closer and closer to the edge; that had marked an incremental increase in trust. This invitation was the big leagues.

The Autobots had gotten to be themselves again for those six days, and since he couldn't begin to understand what that felt like, Will didn't try to.

Summoned back to Portland, the robots in disguise arrived with about as good a grace as they could muster on an individual basis: this ranged from "none at all" on Sunstreaker's part through "whatever" on Sideswipe's, on up to _no reaction of any kind_ from Mirage and Prowl. Couldn't get much more "graceful" than that, Will thought.

Ratchet hadn't bothered with communicating how he felt about it, just set his bag down and went off to play with Annabelle, to return smiling twenty minutes later.

"So ... we've been invited to 'party,' and that's a code word meaning smoking illegal substances and drinking," Will said. "As I said, it's our big break. Unless it's a set-up party house, we'll know where the kingpin lives. Plans are to come in while we're there, and we'll get ourselves busted with all the rest of them. When that happens, _don't resist arrest_. It'll be taken care of. If it shakes out that way, we could get busted away from the party, too. So be prepared." Will paused. "Alcohol and drugs don't affect you guys, so I guess I'll save that speech for myself, okay? You can smoke and drink whatever's offered you. Don't take a big lungful of smoke all at once, it'll make you choke."

Prowler tilted his head. "You mean there's more to Scotch than just the way it tastes?"

"It's human highgrade, Prowl," Ratchet said. "So're the drugs."

"You have more than one kind?" Prowl said, in tones of astonishment. "You lucky devils."

Will and Prowl would find out later that Mirage and Sunstreaker had been _extremely _helpful about keeping dandelions out of the Lennox's lawn because they knew darned well that dried in a low oven for fifteen minutes, lit, and held in front of an air intake, the yellow blooms did lovely things to a Transformer's sense of reality. The miscreant pair did not share their supplies with Sideswipe (who probably would have declined, but not before a dandelion-induced wipeout), nor their knowledge with Prowl.

Ignorant of dandelions at the moment, Will said, "If a woman asks you to go with her, best decline. If the other partyers or especially our host insist, say you're on duty."

0-0-0-0-0-0

The party ebbed and flowed around, leaving human flotsam and musical jetsam everywhere.

It was a waste of a nice house, Will decided.

The three-story white colonial sat on a large lot, far enough back from the street and the neighbors that the din of the party wouldn't bother anyone. The back of the property, in fact, gave onto a steep cliff overlooking an industrial area.

Sideswipe ended up next to him in the flow of the party, and said enthusiastically, "Hey, Will! Great party, huh!" before one of his harem - six lovelies not overly clad in bikinis, none of whom looked like a hooker (_Wait_, said some part of his mind, _how do you know what a hooker looks like_?) - said, "C'mon, Swipe, I'll teach you how to swim!"

He really wanted to watch that happen. Because Transformers couldn't swim to save their lives, except it wouldn't save their lives: it was true they sank like stones, but then they simply walked underwater to shore.

From where he stood, Will could see Prowl and Mirage, unlikely bastions of sanity in this houseful of madness, sitting next to one another on a sofa, as surrounded by women as Sideswipe had been. The two men were holding a conversation with one another, and as he watched, Mirage gently removed a woman's hand from his crotch, and put it down on the sofa.

She frowned at him, and said in perfect British English, "You, sir, are very cold. Are you a eunuch?"

Will flinched. But Mirage (having accessed the term in his database) said composedly, "No, I'm not. But my friend and I seldom have the chance to talk with one another."

"Ah," said the lovely, gathered the other women with her eyes, and departed.

It was perhaps four minutes later that Will saw a very well-groomed boy in his late teens sit beside Prowl, followed by another who sat beside Mirage.

_Hold it together, Lennox, this is not the time to fall on the floor laughing._

He turned his back on the Sofa of Love. Sunstreaker walked with measured steps from painting to sculpture about fifty feet from Will, trailed by two puzzled women who were listening with faux-rapt attention to the yellow Lamborghini: "Whereas this one, you see, the energy comes in from the left, and then the eye is captured by the figure in the yellow jacket before it's moved on to the woman in the background in the red dress ..."

He himself had politely repelled all boarders, and now, except for a wistful smile or so, was left alone.

Boarders? Er, well, layers-of-hands-on-arms.

The stairs were a surging mass of people - the women uniformly in bright skimpy clothing, the men in what Will supposed was "business casual" - often, like his own attire, jeans and a sport jacket. Third floor was the playroom, several bedrooms and jacuzzi suites open to use, they'd been told on arrival.

This room, except for the stairs, contained only Will, Sunstreaker and his harem, so it was comparatively empty, and very quiet.

"Mr. Dennis Carson?" said a voice at his elbow.

His cover name. Will said, "Yes?" turning to face what looked to be the oldest man at the party, except for Ratchet - where was Ratchet?

The man smiled the smile of a hooded cobra. "I am Steven Martinson. It's good to make your acquaintance." He offered his hand, and Will was quick to shake it.

"Thank you for this opportunity, sir."

Martinson inclined his head. "It's a chance for us to benefit one another, Dennis. Come into my office, please. We can talk there."

Will's heart began to pound in his throat. He followed Martinson through heavy wood doors, into a large room with a desk and a visitor's chair in front of it -

and two men took his arms from behind as he passed through the doorway, and wrestled Will facedown to the floor.

He didn't make it easy for them, but he ended up in handcuffs, stuffed unceremoniously into the visitor's chair.

Martinson light a cigar, and followed it with a hit from a brandy snifter, cradling the thin glass in his hand after, to warm the liquor. He studied Will.

"So, Mr. Carson. You want to work for me."

"No," said Will, shaking his head, his breath still coming hard and sharp.

"No?"

"I had no idea you existed until I was asked to come to this party. I wanted to work for Sprue. He never told me who he worked for."

"Ah, yes. Sprue's tact was one of his few true assets to me." More brandy. "I wonder if you and your men will be able to fill Sprue's niche?"

So their crumb was dead. "I have no way of knowing until I know what you want of us. All of my guys are ex-Army Rangers; there's a lot of stuff we can do."

"We wondered where you had gotten your military bearing. West Point?"

"Yes, sir. DD after fourteen years for fighting." Which was something that had happened to the real Dennis Carson, shortly before he lost his life in a car accident.

"Hmph. Well, Dennis, this is what I need."

0-0-0-0-0-0

"Where is everybody?" Will said quietly to Prowl.

They'd roughed him up, the goons, after Martinson left. Pro forma, a few bruises, a little bit of pain to let him know they could inflict it.

"Sunstreaker is enjoying the art on the second floor. Sideswipe is swimming. He didn't bring his trunks, but no one seems to care. Mirage went to get us fresh drinks. Ratchet is off playing a computer game, I believe he said."

"Computer game?"

"It's called 'Operation.'"

That made Will grin. "Get everybody together and ready to go. You're all to turn on your recording devices the minute we stop the van, wherever they take us." Will himself was not wired; why take the chance when the Autobots could do that work without fear of detection?

Sideswipe hadn't bothered to put his clothes back on, had them wadded up under one arm, shoes and socks in the other. He commandeered the front seat beside Will, and dressed himself somehow as they drove to a parking lot which was almost deserted.

"Church?" said Prowl.

"University of Portland," Will said. "Not many students or teachers here on a Saturday."

Martinson's Escalade crept out from below an overpass, and led them another few miles, pulling off into another warehouse area.

"Okay, guys, recorders on as we get out," Will said.

They followed Martinson's entourage into a warehouse four stories high at minimum. Prowl said very quietly to Will, "I detect the presence of large quantities of energon close by."

Will nodded. "Good to know."

"And the police will be here in five minutes."

"Even better."

In the darkness beyond the pale and faltering light let in by the tiny door, there was movement, and then a rising up, and up, and up.


	3. Chapter 3

The twins' adventure continues ...

0-0-0-0-0-0

This time it was Sideswipe who sat bolt upright, trailing wires and cords, optics wide but obviously not seeing the med bay.

"Okay," said Wheeljack, pushing the injectors that put both Autobots back into a sleep cycle. "Two down, one more to go."

"That's how it should work, if I designed it right." The inventor smiled.

"_If_ you designed it right, says the mech who blows hell out of half the lab deck on a twice-weekly basis," Ratchet snorted, and sat back down to watch Sideswipe's monitors.

Wheeljack grinned. "Every failure is only a roadmark to success," he said.

Ratchet snorted again, eyes trained on Sideswipe's monitors.

0-0-0-0-0-0

A deep hum permeated the dark space Sunstreaker, Sideswipe, and Mirage occupied.

"Occupied" here being a rather tenuous word. Sunstreaker and Sideswipe were used to physical closeness, and in fact seemed to require it of one another: twin bond and all that. Mirage, on the other hand, was practically trapped between Sunstreaker and the wall, and to get all three of them out of sight, Sunstreaker had put one arm around Mirage's shoulders, and the other around Sideswipe's. Who, predictably, had whispered, "Aw, I didn't know you still cared."

Predictably, Sunstreaker hissed, "Shut up!"

Predictably, Mirage should have rolled his eyes.

He didn't.

Mirage was not used to being scared right out of his paint job, but here they were in the Nemesis, and there, right outside their little broom closet, or whatever the hell it was, were a whole bunch of Decepticons he did not wish to meet again. He could hear the rumble that was Motormaster's vocalizer, and a group of, Primus help them, Starscream's clones, along with the original, never-to-be-fully-duplicated-and-thank-Primus-for-that, Starscream.

_Starscream's_ clones. Bitchy, whining, egotistical Starscream's bitchy, whining, egotistical clones.

Starscream, going on and on (and on) about how this was his _least_ favorite thing in the world to be doing; Ramjet, lying about something, you could just tell it from his voice; Skywarp, sniveling about something else; Slipstream, shutting Starscream himself down with bare politeness, unless Mirage was much mistaken; Sunstorm, saying, "Yes, of course!" to Motormaster; and last but hardly least, Thundercracker, doing his Sunstreaker imitation: they moved very slowly down the hall outside the Autobots' prison, quarreling, quibbling, sniping at each other, and, so far as he could tell, doing very little actual searching for the three Autobots, as they went.

What more could you possibly want out of life.

A hand rattled their doorknob, unlocking it.

"Sst!" Mirage said. "Close your optics!"

Of course they would have quarreled with him, these were the Lamborghini twins after all, but the door to their prison began to creak open, and they understood: Close your optics, they give us away. All three closed their optics and bowed their heads.

The door hinges screamed, and Mirage felt a prickle of light falling across his arm, and then Starscream's voice loudly penetrated their cozy hideout.

"But I told you, no, they wouldn't! After all, the slaggers're Autobots! And did you listen to me? No, you didn't! And then they didn't, so we won't find them, just like I said we slagging wouldn't, and everything I had planned went up in smoke because _you didn't listen_ ..."

Judging from the acoustics, he never looked into their doorway. The door itself slammed and the light went away and the voices receded.

The twins and Mirage remained immobile, and quiet. Their enemies were still too close.

0-0-0-0-0-0

One hour (during which they had not spoken, and moved as little as possible; Mirage's plating was still warm from contact with Sunstreaker) later, Sideswipe cautiously creaked open the door.

No Decepticons pounced on them from the hall.

In fact, no Decepticons seemed to be in sight.

Mirage, still feeling the pressure of the elder twin's chestplate against him, that arm about his shoulders, made a head gesture, and they followed the slight spy down corridors whose floors were not clean.

So here they were deep in enemy territory, where if they were unlucky they would be captured and tortured, or if only averagely lucky shot on sight, and Mirage was wondering to himself why he thought of Sunstreaker as the elder? Autobot twins were extremely rare, but not so rare that it was known that one spark kicked its chassis to life first. Was that, in fact, Sunstreaker? Was he so much more mature than the ebullient Sideswipe that -

Mirage came out of his head long enough to peer down one corridor, then down another set at ninety-four degrees to the first. Why these mechs could not build square was beyond him.

Those two directions were bare of Decepticons. The way they had come had no Decepticons in hot pursuit; the other way, at eighty-six degrees to theirs, was also unpopulated.

He jerked his head toward the target corridor, and they went, silently as might be.

Spy first, elder next, junior last.

What the hell did it matter? Mirage wondered. Sideswipe was infinitely the better-natured of the two ... protective of his brother, although from time to time it seemed he had difficulty putting up with him.

Of course, that one ran both ways. But Sideswipe was never on one side of an argument, Sunstreaker on the other. Or if they did have opposing points of view, their disagreements were not put on display for the other Autobots. All for one and one for all, that was Sides and Sunny.

The open air duct, its grating on the floor below it, that they wanted into loomed ahead.

Mirage said to himself that it was time to stop talking to himself about someone he had a crush on who had never shown any sign whatsoever of returning it. Sunstreaker had never sought him out, never so much as sat at the same table to have morning energon.

Slag it, anyway.

"Give me a leg up," he hissed to Sideswipe.

"What?"

"Give me a leg up. Then Sunny boosts you. Then we both pull up Sunny." _Because I don't need any more distractions, like lying here beside your brother!_

Sideswipe grabbed Mirage by the leg and shoved him up; Mirage dived into the duct, and Sunny boosted Sideswipe.

And that's when their luck went sour. The bare floor resounded to the clang of multiple metal pedes.

"Sunny! Sunny!" hissed Sideswipe, reaching down.

But Sunstreaker, looking down the corridor, backed away, and raced to the corner, moving quickly into one of the not-quite-ninety-degree cross-corridors. He went as stealthily as he could, and the heavy feet of the group of Decepticons approached.

"Sunny!" said Sideswipe, despair in his voice.

"Come on," Mirage said, edging away on elbows and knees. "Best thing we can do for him is stay free ourselves. We don't want to get caught here. Come on. You first."

They scooched themselves down the duct, finding refuge in another cross-duct.

Lights were shown down their alleyway. "Don't see nothin'," a bored voice said.

"No scratches in th' dirt?"

"Naw, nothin'. Look fer yerself."

Sides looked at Mirage, who was folding a small polishing cloth with concentration. He understood suddenly that the haste had not merely been to get themselves out of sight, but to eradicate their tracks, which Mirage had done through the simple expedient of dragging the cloth after himself.

"Hey," said one of the 'cons at the opening, "what's going on down there?"

"Don't know," said the other. "Let's go see."

The two fugitives were behind the next grate over when Sunstreaker, head drooping and hands shackled behind him, was carried past them. Small drops of energon marked his passage down the corridor; the yellow twin's trailing pedes dragged them into lines.

Mirage grabbed the red twin in a grip both of them knew could disable Sideswipe in a nanoklik if Mirage chose, and kept his eyes off Sideswipe's face.

Mirage watched until a turning of the corridor took them out of sight. Sideswipe, too. He hadn't fought to get out of Mirage's grasp, even though there were only eight 'cons with Sunny, and it was possible they could have killed them all. Possible, not likely, and almost certainly they could not have done it fast enough to prevent them from raising the alarm.

"Let's go get him before they've tortured him so badly he can't walk," Mirage said. "But first, we've got to find what we were sent for."

"And you can't tell us - me - what that is."

"Sunny can't tell them because he doesn't know. He'll use that to stay alive," Mirage said quietly. "You can too. It's safest that way. Help me do this, we get Sunny, we all get out of here. The faster we do this, the faster we get to Sunny."

"They won't be gentle with him," Sideswipe said, his handsome face looking less lost.

"No. Reason to hurry, don't you think?"

0-0-0-0-0-0

About a half-joor later, after he posted Sideswipe on guard near the entrance to a grubby and anonymous engineering department, Mirage found what he was looking for.

It was not locked up, which surprised him.

He subspaced an untidy pile of papers and several jars of goo with arcane labels. Let 'Jack sort it out ... maybe Perceptor would help.

"Come on," he said, touching Sideswipe's arm. "This way."

They shuffled a grating back into place over the duct they had used to get to the lab; they had no way to replace the screws, so Mirage subspaced them too.

Mirage was concerned for the red twin. He wasn't focusing well; his eyes were consistently internal. This is not optimal functioning for any undercover agent. "Sideswipe, you okay?"

"They're torturing him," Sideswipe said expressionlessly.

"How can you tell?"

"He's shut me out. They hurt him, and then they left him alone in the dark and the cold. He's shut me out because it was so bad. Not entirely, that's impossible ... "

"Can you lead me there?"

"What can you do?" Sideswipe said bitterly. "We're built for combat. So are the mechs with him. You're ... not."

Mirage smiled a smiled that should have scared Sideswipe witless. "That's right. That lets me do things you and Sideswipe, and they, can't."

0-0-0-0-0-0

Sunstreaker dangled from chains that had been welded to his wrists.

The Decepticons hadn't bothered to shut off any sensation receptors before they undertook this operation. And they had not been gentle with the Autobot, either in capturing him, or in the encouragement they administered to encourage him to answer their questions. He had burn marks all over his finish. Nothing deep, no smoke or sparks, but he'd lost quite a lot of energon and cooling fluid, to judge by the color of the pools of liquid he stood in.

His optics were dark: disconnected, most likely. A little fillip of cruelty.

Autobots are less flexible than humans: tendons and muscles can stretch and be lengthened. Cables, not so much. An Autobot in yoga class would be the one the teacher spent the most time with, the one all the other students watched with a pitying smile. (And, if that student were Sunstreaker, the one who said, "Fuck you, and your Down Dog too!" when he caught the smile.)

An ordinary human bound as Sunstreaker was would have been able to raise his arms a little above waist level by stretching the shoulders; a practitioner of yoga would of course have been able to do better. Sunstreaker, like Sideswipe, was built heavily with combat in mind. So he had bent at the waist - it was that or allow his shoulder joints or upper arm beams to fracture as the Decepticons pulled his wrists as far up and back as possible, and then a little farther ... and then left him.

Mirage had seldom been so angry in his life. Sideswipe gave him a startled glance; the rage must have been rolling off the spy in waves, he realized. "You keep watch," he said curtly to the red twin. "I'll cut him down. You take point while we get to the pickup point. Yeah?"

Sideswipe growled, and moved forward.

"Sunstreaker. It's Mirage."

Sunstreaker made no reply, and Mirage wondered if he were unconscious. He shrugged, and went back to using a very fine torch on the joint of the bracelets, using one cut to free Sunstreaker's arms of both the weld and the chain.

When the chain came free, Sunstreaker staggered forward, unable to get his arms out in front of himself to catch his balance. Mirage grabbed him, as gently as possible, around the waist, and supported him until he caught himself: but Sunstreaker began to struggle, pushing at Mirage's hands, doing his damaged best to fight.

"Sunstreaker!" he said, quietly, deflecting two blows from brawny arms. "Sunny! Sides is here, and I'm Mirage. We're getting you out of - slag! Sides! Sides! Speak to Sunny through the bond! I can't use the comm, the 'cons will hear it too!"

Because he realized suddenly that the Decepticons had disconnected not merely Sunstreaker's optics, but his audio, too, and then left him strung up in pain, cold, darkness, and silence. To save Sideswipe from undergoing the same experience, Sunstreaker had _cut the bond_ between himself and his twin.

Left totally alone in pain, blind and deaf ...

Without warning, Sunstreaker went almost limp under Mirage's hands. He got him over to a bunk, or something, sitting down anyway, and had a look at him: nothing he could fix here. They'd had a medic in to do the work, it looked like.

Sunstreaker was moving his arms experimentally, getting back some motion.

Sideswipe said suddenly, beyond them, "I hear someone coming."

Mirage made the split-second decision he had to. "You take Sunny and get out."

Sideswipe said, "What? No! You go!"

"Don't argue, Sides. I can't communicate with him. You can."

"But -"

"_Go. Now._"

"What will you do?" Sides asked, heaving his brother up into the grating.

"Make them sorry they were ever sparked," Mirage said quietly. He pulled on the black gloves he never used except for what humans would call "wet work" or "termination with extreme predjuice."

Sideswipe gave him a wild look as he jumped into the duct, and Mirage put the grate back over the hole. "Get," he said.

He turned back to the empty brig, and began to think through his lines of fire.

0-0-0-0-0-0

Some three cycles later, Mirage made it back to base.

"You have some slaggin' nerve, showing up here like this," Ratchet said, grumbling as he took a metaphorical wrench to various dents, dings, bullet holes, scratches, over-tensioned cables, and nicked lines.

"It's not so very bad," Mirage said, and closed eyes that he hadn't known were that weary.

Ratchet snorted, but got gentler.

A few minutes and turnings-off of receptors later, Mirage said, "Sides and Sunny okay?"

"Sideswipe, for some reason, had no injuries at all. He complained that the trip home was boring. Sunstreaker, once I put his optics and audio back online, was his usual charming self. I also replaced a few cables and the ball joints in his shoulders. Rest of it was pretty minor." The medic paused, and put a sensor off-line. "It's good you got him out as fast as you did. Sunny isn't programmed to endure long patches of solitude ... not in silence and darkness."

"And pain."

"No. And Sideswipe told me the slagging idiot severed the bond temporarily, too."

"He tried to, to spare Sideswipe. Apparently it wasn't totally successful."

"No. I bolted that red idiot to the bed next to his brother for a good three cycles, made them both rest and recharge."

"Must have been fun in here."

Ratchet grinned. "Will be for you too. Prowl asked to debrief you the minute you return. I just paged him."

0-0-0-0-0-0

"I took the first three out with single shots," Mirage said quietly, "as they entered the brig. Their command center in the brig offered the best line of fire. After I had killed the rest of the team, five more, I put a few rounds into the computer to slag things up throughout the ship."

The recording device had a red, red eye, just like the Decepticons'. Mirage glanced at it and then away. Optimus Prime, Prowl, and Ironhide sat quietly beside his bed, Prowl occasionally making notes on a datapad.

"The duct system was off-limits to me, since Sideswipe and Sunstreaker were using it, and I was acting as cover for them. I followed the smell of energon through the halls to the rec lounges on each deck. I put sixteen of the eighteen energon dispensers out of commission. At the seventeenth they were waiting for me, so I went to the cargo bays and rewired their logging system to dump future data into our system. It won't be traceable until they have to reprogram the primary cargo data dump." Mirage smiled. "It also alters their course by one-point-seven degrees at unpredictable intervals. It's programmed to look like a missed call line in the astro tables. And as a last little gift from us to them, every fifth breem it deletes a half-kilo from the total cargo load. Ten groon later, I stole a runabout, and made rendezvous."

He was particularly happy with that cargo-load adjustment. It meant that the central computer, lied to about the cargo weight carried in the Decepticon's ship, would undercalculate the amount of fuel needed to get the 'cons' ship through space. Between that and the endless course corrections, the 'cons ran a real risk of being stranded.

Optimus tilted his head. "What did they do to you, to make you so angry?"

Couldn't hide much from the boss. Mirage dropped his eyes, anyway. "It was the cruelty of the torture, Optimus. They found that Sunstreaker had no information, kept him in pain anyway, added to it conditions they knew he could not endure, for no point."

Optimus, not fooled, frowned. "I caution any mech who embarks upon a vendetta with the enemy. It's likely to make them careless. Do you need to hear that speech, Mirage?"

"I don't believe so. I don't work with Sunstreaker very often."

Prime stared at him for a very very long moment. Mirage bore the weight of that blue gaze calmly, waiting for it to end ...

"Very well." Prime rose, collected Ironhide with a glance, and left the med bay.

Mirage sighed, and stretched. He needed to recharge for, say, a vorn or so.

"He saw right through you," Prowl said. "You wouldn't have been so angry if it were anyone but Sunstreaker."

Mirage studied his hands. "Probably not."

"You going to do anything about that?" Prowl said. He had known Mirage better, far longer, than anyone else on the Ark; their friendship had survived battle, argument, and love. Or whatever that was, all those vorn ago.

So: Mirage raised his head, and looked his closest friend in the optics. "I'd feel kind of silly if I didn't."

"Good. I'll be around to collect the pieces and bring them back to Ratchet," Prowl said, and grinned at Mirage.

"Uh, thanks."

0-0-0-0-0-0

"Well, then, my lovelies, are we awake?"

Two sets of blue optics blinked very, very slowly at Ratchet. Sideswipe was the first to speak: "Yeah, sort of." He blinked again. "That's a dream? Humans have this kind of nonsense running around their heads at night?"

"Every night, as I understand it," Ratchet said cheerfully, unfastening the monitors and recorders from Sunstreaker, who sat up and flexed the arm Ratchet had used to access his coolant lines. "Most nights, though, they don't remember it."

"Hunh," the yellow twin said. He looked across at the other Lamborghini. "Kinda like watching television."

"Except we were there."

"Really?" said Ratchet. "It felt like an experience, not a movie?"

"Yep." Sideswipe sat up. He looked at Sunstreaker. "That horse crap - you get that from watching ESPN?"

"BBC Sports. They got a lot more horse stuff than the American channels. –And all that spy weirdness? You've been watching _NCIS_, haven't you?"

Sideswipe swung his legs over the edge of the table. "_Burn Notice_, too."

Sunstreaker snorted, and said, "Excuse me. Somebody I gotta go see."

The other three watched him walk out of the med bay. "Who's that?" Ratchet asked.

"Didn't you download these? You'll see."

Wheeljack picked up the cassettes and walked in the direction of the door, whistling, but Sideswipe said, "'Jack. Would you help me with something?"

"It legal?"

"Yeah. Well, it ain't illegal yet. I want to make myself a skateboard."

Wheeljack shrugged. "We'll talk." He exited the med bay, resuming his whistle.

Ratchet worked at putting back the cables and monitors. He looked up to find the red twin still watching him. "You feeling all right?"

"Sure."

"Why aren't you gone, then, like your brother?"

Sideswipe smiled gently. "Sunny needs to go see Mirage. I know Mirage has been watching Sunny, and I know Sunny has - feelings - for Mirage."

"Huh," Ratchet. It wasn't the weirdest thing he'd ever heard of, and therefore required no further comment, to Ratchet's way of thinking.

"Those two think more alike than any two mechs I know." Sideswipe bent one knee sharply enough to put the pede on the edge of the table, and wrapped his arms around his shin. "He got to like Mirage when they were assigned to spar together."

"Was it the dream?" Ratchet said, coiling cables. "That finally got him to say something, I mean?"

"Probably. You watch the tapes. That'll make it all clear."

"All right. Off with you, now. Go find the person _you_ need to see."

Sideswipe smiled again. "He's right in front of me, Ratchet."

0-0-0-0-0-0

Wheeljack, Ironhide, Prowl, Jazz, and Optimus shared some energon and a little bit of a game humans might have recognized as a poker variant from time to time. Usually, Ratchet was present, but this time, he'd begged off.

"So the dream induction worked, 'Jack?" Optimus said, distributing game pieces. "I saw your brief, but I haven't had time to read all the notes yet."

"Yes, better than my expectations. I expected at least a few glitches, but there weren't any." Wheeljack picked up his hand. "It's a technique I would suggest we use again when any of the other younger mechs enter their first heat cycles."

"It's a good technique to have handy, but thank Prime it happens only once every twenty vorn or so." Jazz smiled, and picked up his own hand. "Those two're uncomfortable to be around when they're in heat. They're such pretty models that the other youngsters feel themselves gettin' all hot and bothered just bein' in the same room with 'em." He paused for a moment, but gossip was meat and drink to them all. And frequently, it helped you to know how to interact best with your suddenly-assigned combat partner. "Who're the twins attracted to?"

"Sunstreaker has a thing for Mirage, from the tapes," said Wheeljack. "I wasn't aware that Mirage had any feelings for Sunstreaker, but then I don't see either of them very often."

"Ah've seen 'em aroun' tagether since ya did yer little experiment," drawled Ironhide. "He does. They're enough ta make ya purge yer tanks."

Prowl might have grinned. Hard to tell, with Prowl.

Wheeljack, sorting cards, continued, "Sideswipe outwaited me to talk to Ratchet. Last I knew, Ratchet was fighting a rearguard action, but losing."

Optimus chuckled, and placed the last card face-up on the table. "Twenty's on the Lambo," he said. "I've never known anybody as determined as Sideswipe. Any takers?"

Four mechs exchanged eyeballs as they accessed their knowledge of the red twin, and Jazz was the first one to speak up. "Nah," he said.

0-0-0-0-0-0

"For the last time, no! You're my most frequent patient! You want to be lying on that table, scragged to scrap, and see me lose it so bad I can't repair you, because we're interfacing?"

"So you do feel something for me." Sideswipe smiled at Ratchet, and refilled the medic's cup of highgrade, then his own.

"Irritation." The medic tossed back yet another cup.

If Sideswipe had ever held designs on Ratchet's virtue, like getting the irascible medic drunk to take advantage of him, those plans were being rapidly derailed.

Ratchet's capacity for highgrade was legendary. So was Sideswipe's, but Ratchet was just at the irritable-drunk stage, while Sideswipe could feel the floor beginning to get twisty under his pedes, and the chair wobbling under his aft. Ratchet, in short, was drinking Sideswipe under the table.

Strategy was called for. This seduction was going to be very hard work, but all the sweeter when he succeeded, Sideswipe thought, and grinned to himself.

Strategy in this case consisted of taking a sip when Ratchet emptied his cup. If Ratchet were too drunk to notice, it might work.

"There's First Aid." Sip.

Ratchet snorted, knocked back the cup, and pushed it across the table. Sideswipe promptly refilled it. "He's a junior medic. Let me break him in a little further before you scare him sightless."

Sideswipe raised his optic ridges. "You've got staff."

Ratchet paused with his highgrade half way to his mouth. "Sideswipe. Listen to me. I am the _Chief Medical Officer_ of this circus of Optimus', and that means I get the worst cases, the guys who might die, and that includes you. Almost always, that includes you. I can't be involved with you and treat you as a patient at the same time. I need to look at a damaged body as a system, and then put that system back together. If I have feelings about the spark that's inside that system, I - I can't be objective. Can't do what's needed."

"Seems like I have greater faith in you than you do," Sideswipe observed, and smiled gently at Ratchet.

It wasn't, of course, possible to keep feelings this strong out of the twin bond. Aware of Sunstreaker's feelings for Mirage as his twin was of his own for Ratchet, Sideswipe had been very surprised when Sunny laid a hand on his arm one morning before they went on duty, and made direct optic contact. "Look, Sides ... with Ratchet ... don't get hurt, okay?"

"No, I won't. I'll persuade him," he'd said confidently. "I'm not going to lose this one, Sunny."

Sunny surprised his twin by saying, "I hope you don't. And not just for you, for him too. Ratchet's got the most -" Sunstreaker paused for a moment, wrinkling his beautiful brow - "the _cruelest_ job in this outfit. I wonder how many friends he's watched die. He deserves someone special to spark-share with, or even just to sleep beside. I hope you're it."

_Me too, bro_, Sideswipe thought now, watching the medic across the table.

Ratchet was staring at the nothing just in front of him, beyond which lay his cup, untasted.

"So you won't spark-share with me," Sideswipe said. He was going to adopt his hurt-immature-canine look, but gave it a miss. This was not about emotional manipulation. (And if he didn't use it now, he could use it later. )

"No, kid. I won't spark-share with you."

"Friends, then?"

Ratchet knocked back his cup. "Depends on your definition thereof." He stood. "I gotta go. Thanks for the highgrade."

0-0-0-0-0-0-0

And that's where it stayed, until the next time Sideswipe caught it.

The twins had been on recco. It was Sunny who arrived in the med bay, just after Ratchet's shift had begun, Sideswipe in his arms ... systems and internals that Ratchet was all too familiar with dangling from the crumpled red burden he cradled.

Ratchet had taken one look at them both and come running. "You," he said to Sunny, "on that bunk, now, and recharge. About the time you come out of it, he'll be awake again, and I'll have him at least partly put together. Do it. _Now_."

"My finish -"

"Later. Recharge _now_."

Ratchet didn't often use what he himself referred to as his "voice of Primus" tone, but when he did, it worked. Every time, on every mech, and Sunstreaker was no exception.

When he could spare a moment from Sideswipe, he had Fixit hook up the Autobot equivalent of an energon IV for Sunny, and send him down into a second recharge cycle. Then he and Fixit returned to Sideswipe, beginning Ratchet's second shift at the repairs table.

Many orn later, Fixit ran the last pair of tests on Sideswipe's legs, and said, "There. All complete. He's up again."

"Good. I'm about done here myself. Make the notes for me, will you? When Patch gets here, I'm going to get a cup of energon."

"Get some sleep too?"

"Probably," said Ratchet.

When he returned, Sunstreaker was awake, and standing by his twin's bed, one hand twined in his twin's, the other stroking his brow.

"He's going to be all right," Ratchet said.

"I know. When I got him here and he was still respiring, I knew he'd be all right." The yellow Lamborghini straightened himself. "Thanks, Ratchet."

"All part of the service," Ratchet said briskly. "Now get out."

Sunstreaker grinned at him, put down the hand he'd been holding, and absented himself.

The sleep took place some time later, on the repair table nearest Sideswipe's, and over Patch's protests.

"C'mon, Ratchet, I can watch him as well as you can."

"And if something goes wrong, I'm in my quarters. No, I'll stay here."

Ratchet set himself to rouse if there was a change in any of Sideswipe's vitals; as close as the twin had come to cracking his spark casing, Ratchet was taking no chances.

He yearned, for a moment, for a cup of highgrade. But with a critical patient in the bay, he'd never yet touched a drop, and he wasn't going to start now.

0-0-0-0-0-0

Ratchet woke with a start and a snort. He was barely fully functioning when he focused on Sideswipe's monitors - and then beyond them, to Sideswipe himself, optics open and focused on him. "How're you feeling?" the medic rasped.

"Crumpled."

Ratchet snorted. "Tell me, how'd it happen this time?"

"I was skateboarding through the halls of the 'con HQ, and ..."

Ratchet rolled his eyes. "Primus!"

"It was a new 'con. I don't know his name. Carries a big-caliber on one arm. He put one near us when we were movin', but I didn't think anything of it, didn't think he had our range. Next one was right on top of me, about fifty feet from Sunny." Sideswipe wrinkled his brow. "He all right? It knocked me offline. I don't remember seeing if he got hit."

"He's fine, apart from a few scuffs. So for once, you were just unlucky."

"I'd say it made a nice change, but I really can't tell the difference from this end." Sideswipe grinned at the medic, who was methodically freeing him of the lines attached to monitors and fluids-access. "Except you haven't hit me with a wrench this time."

"No point. You were out." Ratchet patched the last of the lines he had accessed to give fluid and energon, and stood back. "You're outta here. Light duty for fourteen sun-cycles."

Sideswipe stood up, and up - Ratchet forgot from time to time how much taller than he the younger mech was, as he most often encountered him when he was horizontal - and then, to the medic's shock, took Ratchet into his arms.

Ratchet stiffened. "Sideswipe, no."

Sideswipe didn't let go of him immediately. "Better get used to it, Ratch. It's going to happen a lot more frequently from now on." Then he stood still for a moment or two, with Ratchet in his arms, no pressure, no other communication than the reassurance of touch. And then he let go, and stepped back. "I have confidence in you, Ratchet."

Shaken, Ratchet looked up at him. "You have a hell of a lot of nerve."

"So they say, often to my face. But what you've got is courage. You've got enough of it to do this, and let yourself love too." Sideswipe smiled down at him, put a hand on his shoulder. "Maybe not me. But you can do this, Ratchet, and you know it. So I'm going to keep trying. Who knows, I might be lucky." He let his hand fall, turned for the door of the med bay.

Ratchet said desperately, "I've seen the tapes, you know. I know you didn't dream of me."

Sideswipe stopped, but didn't turn around. He said, "I didn't have to, Ratchet. Sunny dreamed of Mirage because Mirage wasn't there. You were right beside me."

And that's when Ratchet knew he was sunk, and resorted to his old tactics. "Get out of my med bay."

Sideswipe did turn at that. "Sure. Dinner, later?"

"Yes. Goodbye."

Sideswipe, grinning, turned and left.


End file.
